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How to Stop Watching Porn? – It Will Ruin Your Sex Life

Part of being more sexually motivated is to take an honest look at how pornography is affecting our sex lives. Amongst the men’s dating advice community, going out a masturbation diet and limiting pornography is one of the methods dished out to be more sexually motivated.

Self development books such as Think and Grow Rich, talks about the ability to transmute sexual desire into creative pursuits such as productive work or art, instead of it depleting one’s energy and motivation. Successful personalities such as Steve Jobs, are even known to withhold from having sex just to get a creative boost at work.

Personally, be it academics, chasing girls, or work, my Achilles heel when is apathy. I convince myself that I don’t give a fuck when I actually do. It’s my biggest ‘sticking point’. Not only I leave things to the last minute, procrastinate, I also often need a kick in my ass to get things moving.

One of the ways that I push through my apathy is to limit pornography. This helps me get motivated to get things done, go out more often and take action.

My Personal Experience with Pornography

I started watching pornography when I was 10-11. I had a computer, a dial up connection, and that was all I need. I was one resourceful kid. I caught on the hardcore stuff really fast. BDSM, lesbians, foot fetishes, hardcore pornography, you name it, I knew it. I watched those for years on until I had my first sexual experience when I was 17.

It’s no surprise that I had been desensitized from the years of hard core pornography and I couldn’t perform the first couple of times I did it with my ex-girlfriend. I wasn’t used to a real woman’s touch. I was used to all the unrealistic portrayals of pornography. On top of that, a woman’s vagina is different from the grip of your hand. The sex was awful. She must have felt sexually undesirable in some way, and I felt bad about it.

Your Feelings of Inadequacy

I had many issues I was unaware of back then.

I realized I had been using pornography as a way to soothe out my feelings of inadequacy and inferiorior. This is probably why I felt a need to jerk off early in the morning. I would waking up feeling crappy about myself. It was either pornography, or the fridge. I used either food, or sexual pleasure to escape from certain negative feelings in my life. This is probably why I watched hardcode pornography from the age of 12. It was away to deal with my feelings of inadequacy, probably stemmed from my experiences in childhood.

There’s research that points out that addictions are created when you’re filling a hole in your life. Some people do it through pornography, some do it through alcohol, some do it through food, others do it through drugs.

I don’t think I was ever addicted to pornography, however, it really fucked up my sexual motivation and general sense of well being in general. I couldn’t perform in academics, sports and in life because I was probably suppressing some anxiety and had to jerk off to soothe those feelings.

When I started out as a pick up artist, I would read tons of pick up artist books and proceed to jerk off on a Friday night, not going out to the club to talk to real girls.

It was only when I started being serious about bettering my dating life, That I consciously chose to limit pornography and masturbation that I felt more motivated, and sexually confidence. I also made sure that whenever I’m seeing someone, I would also limit them as well.

This has helped me performed better, be more socially aggressive and enjoy sex a lot more. When you’re not basing your sex life off unrealistic expectations on your computer screen, you’ll be a lot more sensitive to a real woman’s touch and body. There are many upsides as well. You’ll feel more clear headed in your work. You don’t feel guilty or ashamed about jerking off the night before. There are tons of benefits from limiting pornography.

The Science of Pornography

The intake of pornography is researched to be a supra normal stimulus to our brains. This means, it’s way more pleasurable than the average arousing stimulus. Our human beings aren’t evolved to take in those kind of extreme stimulus. This is why you become desensitized and develop a need for more novel stimuli through nastier, or fancier, more hardcore pornography.

At the end of the day pornography paints an unrealistic picture of sex. This merely skews our perception of what beauty is and gives us unreasonable standards for sex with the women we meet.

I used to think that I had to fuck a girl like one of those porn stars with six-pack abs. You know, bang the shit out of her. With multiple positions and a stamina of a race horse. You know, like the ones you see on pornographic websites.

That can’t be further from reality.

Sex is actually a vulnerable act for both the girl and the guy. When it actually happens, it’s nothing like you see on computer screens. Sex is actually an act where both parties are quite unsure about themselves. Till this day, I still get nervous when taking off my clothes, I still get nervous when asking a girl to come back to mine.

So is pornography all that horrible?

Porn addiction has been debated if it’s a real addiction. Whilst it isn’t a ‘real addiction’, many people do experience real life problems with it. It has been linked to issues such as unhappy and unsatisfied partners, depression, anxiety, and loneliness.

Research has also shown that 43% of men reported difficulty in getting or maintaining an erection at least some of the time, with 24% reporting that they had difficulty “more often than I’d like to admit”.

How to Stop Watching Porn?

Now, let’s get serious here. It’s our sexual motivation and life motivation we’re talking about. This can determine not only your success with girls, but also if you’re able to show up to work on time, cure cancer, or fly to the moon. It’s life changing stuff.

I’ll share with you some methods that has helped me over the years.

1) If you can’t quit porn on cold turkey, leave it to the last activity of the day. You can use pornography as a reward for the productive work you’ve accomplished during the day. You’re using this to rewire the pleasure reward mechanism in your brain. Ideally, you want to land yourself in a positon where you have accomplished so much work in the day, that you don’t really want to jerk off to ‘spoil the track record’.

2) Psychological research shows that building habits in a small way is the only sustainable way to do it rather than flooding yourself with too many habits at one go. Habits are built small and then compounded over time. Starting small such as keeping masturbation and porn to only the last activity of the day is a small step that anyone can start applying in their lives.

3) If all else fails, fly to another country for a week or two. Travel can be used as an effective means to break and build habits. Whenever I’m out of the country, I’m much more productive and I don’t jerk off that much. Furthermore, staying in a hostel means that you can’t really watch pornography right? Or jerk off right beside your hostel mates right? (Or can you?)

4) Create an environment of inevitable success. When I was studying in the United States, I was stressed out of my head, behind time on academics and had a fuck ton of assignments to finish. On top of that, I had personal responsibilities such as laundry, phone bills, making friends, making sure I go out on dates. I suddenly had better priorities than jerking off to porn.

5) Take a step back and ask yourself: Why are you watching pornography? Research shows that pornography is often used to cope reduce stress, to relief oneself from boredom, used to cope with negative feelings or situations, or simply avoiding withdrawal symptoms. People with poor coping skills are much more vulnerable to using pornography as an outlet. So, are you merely using porn as a coping strategy?

6) When you do masturbate, think of girls you’ve met in real life. Don’t fantasize about the girls you see in pornography clips. This ties in with our dating strategies. Let’s say you met a girl last week in the club, and you’re currently text her. Instead of relying on pornography, you can fantasize about her. It’ll hugely re-wire your mind to help you be more sensitive with real life girls.

7) Pay attention to cues in your environment that lead you to watch porn. For me, it’s an empty room, a computer, and a couple of VPN bypass. It really sucks that I’m doing most of my work on the same computer that I’m watching pornography on. Habit researchers found that in order to create new habits to break the old ones, you should not focus on the behaviour but the cue itself. In my case, by deleting my VPN bypass and making my computer strictly for work, I’m changing the cue.

The Positive Effects of Not Watching Porn

I’ve never really quit cold turkey throughout the years. However, the times that I consciously limited my pornography intake, I’ve felt the positive side effects of it. The girls on the streets become more beautiful, and I’ll have a greater desire to go talk to them. There’s also a noticeable improvement in motivation and sense of well being.

When I’m watching pornography on a more frequent basis. I’ll be more judgmental of the girls I’m willing to approach. There’ll be a perfectly beautiful girl who walks past me, and I’ll put it off and cite that she isn’t hot enough. I also notice a difference in anxiety when I’m on porn and when I’m not. I feel more grounded and centred going about my day to day activities when I’m not on pornography.

Sex also becomes better. I used to worry and get nervous about not being able to finish and the girl being sore and tired. I’m happy to report that I’m facing less of these problems these days.

I would really recommend it as a dating coach. There are also many positive reports from guys who are going through the ‘no fap’ diet.

To Quit or Not to Quit?

Limiting pornography is still a daily habit I’m working on till this date.

It’s a habit that I built since I was 11 and it’s going to take time and effort to re-wire this habit.

There are times, when I horny and if I don’t have a sexual partner, I’ll relapse go back to watching porn. However, I’m sure that I’m addicted to it. I also don’t really see a need to quit pornography completely, I’ve tried that and some times it works against me. However, I hope to keep watching pornography to a minimal, and not let in affect my work of my dating life.